The Winds Blow
by Magi Silverwolf
Summary: Luna knew what it was like to be without a purpose, without an anchor. She had already watched more than one person she loved be torn apart by the storm. She was not willing to let the same thing happen to Harry if there was anything she could do to prevent it. (TQC)


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.  
 **Warnings:** This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. Please exercise understanding of personal sensitivities before and while reading.

 **Author's Notes:** This fic fills in a bit of backstory for a future part of _The Quiet Calm_ , specifically the fic that has the current working title of _The Arms of the Ocean_. While writing that portion, I kept having a nagging feeling that something was _way_ different about Luna even if she stayed on the spectrum of characterization I have for her: intelligent, obsessive, and utterly accepting of everything. That feeling ended up leading to three different pieces, because Luna is, well, _Luna_ and has an incorrigible habit of worming her way into things.

 **Summary (** _ **The Winds Blow**_ **)** : Luna knew what it was like to be without a purpose, without an anchor. She had already watched more than one person she loved be torn apart by the storm. She was not willing to let the same thing happen to Harry if there was anything she could do to prevent it.

 **Series Note(s):** This fic take place within the continuum of _The Quiet Calm_. As of right now, this fic takes place before all of the others chronologically and because of how far back Luna's perspective goes, that is unlikely to be changed. While care has been taken so that this story can stand on its own, reading the proceeding fics will increase one's understanding and enjoyment of things. Since this series is being written out of order, I recommend going by the series order given on my profile.

 **Song Recommendation(s)** : "The Hell of It" by Paul Williams  
 **Book Reference(s):** _Order of the Phoenix_ ; _Deathly Hallows_ (No Epilogue)  
 **Episode Reference(s):** N/A  
 **Timeline Reference(s):** Final scene takes place the night of May 2, 1998

-= LP =-  
The Winds Blow  
-= LP =-  
"We're all born to die alone, y'know. That's the hell of it." – Paul Williams, _The Hell of It_  
-= LP =-

Luna Lovegood was used to being the odd duck in the crowd. It didn't mean that she didn't find it lonely. It didn't mean that she didn't watch the other kids at her special school or the Weasley children and desperately _want_ to be included for once. She knew she was on the outside of everything and probably always would be.

It was just the way things were for those who Noticed, for those whose thoughts moved too quickly for most others to keep pace.

It wasn't great, but it was what it was.

The Noticing was not something that Luna could stop, not any more than she could stop her mind from racing. She would pick up on the details of things no matter how subtle they seemed. Of course, merely noticing didn't mean that she _understood_. Daddy's advice was research and experimentation, to use the research of others to further one's own knowledge. Mama was less direct—and it would be years before Luna really understood the depth of her mother's gift. At the time, all she had cared about was that when Mama had wrapped her hands around Luna's to manually teach them the motions of drawing, everything went blissfully _quiet_.

Drawing helped give the details she noticed somewhere to go. Replicating the lines and colors helped show others what she was seeing. Like a muscle growing stronger, the things she noticed increased as she was given more things to notice. That first term at the parish school was a hazy mixture of details and pen strokes broken only by tests and Mama's soft reminders to not speak about magic to the muggles. The next term was at an independent school for gifted children and brought with it _paint_ and _clay_.

But the Noticing didn't stop, and she couldn't paint all the time. With teachers and resources that allowed her to learn at her own pace, Luna sped through the education norms of muggles. She almost didn't notice when the whispers started around her, hissing from the jealous mouths of her classmates or the rare wizarding child from Ottery St. Catchpole. She tried to ignore them, to ignore the tiny shifts in expression that betrayed their emotions as surely as the way they refused to let her join their games and conversations. It hurt, it did, but her mind was already racing ahead, knowing that eventually she would be going to a different school with other students who had magic.

Dismissal from the muggles didn't matter because the speed _must_ come from magic. She would have friends at Hogwarts, even if her few interactions with her nearest neighbors didn't go so well. The Burrow was just so loud and cluttered, overwhelmingly full of details to _notice_ , including the not-there _otherness_ that whispered or sang like Mama's potions and artwork or hummed like the strange things that Daddy brought home from work to study. The cacophony beat against her and it _hurt_ , it did, but she couldn't make it stop.

It was better after her mother took her out to the moonlit grotto the Midsummer after her eighth birthday and taught her to use the Noticing to pick up on the currents of Magic Herself. They sounded like music and tasted like love on her tongue. The dance came from Mama's native Kythira but Luna still felt their echo before Mama's instruction could articulate, like the retreating press of a kiss to the forehead. What the Mother _gave_ , She gave all the way. Around them, pixies and will-o-wisps floated and spun, sometimes in concert and sometimes to counter.

Luna always thought that it was a normal childhood, that it was not entirely unique being neither utterly muggle or entirely magical. It was the confidence of a child whose faith in her parents was absolute. She could think circles around most adults, lacking experience but not knowledge, and she could tell that they didn't appreciate that any more than her peers did.

But none of that mattered because Mama and Daddy were there, strong and supportive and wonderful.

Until they _weren't_.

Mama's death _changed_ Daddy in more ways than him retiring from the Department of Mysteries. The Noticing gave Luna a thousand and one details about her father's slow decline into obsession. She never doubted that her father loved her, but by the time she was due to start Hogwarts, the moments when he was lost in his research were the norm instead of the exception.

Luna went shopping for her school supplies alone.

She got herself to the train.

It took her father to November to reply to her letter announcing that she had been Sorted into his old House. It was dated on the third of September. She wept over the letter, because she _understood_ and didn't blame him. She didn't bother sending a reply.

She was used to being alone.

It wasn't great, but it was what it was.

Until it _wasn't._

-= LP =-

Harry Potter fascinated her from the first moment she had gotten a good look at him. There was an important distinction to that. The few times Mrs. Weasley had watched Luna before her mother died, Ginny had made no secret that she was going to marry the Boy-Who-Lived, even if she had to give him a nudge like the one _her_ mother gave _her_ father. That had never interested Luna, who had always wanted something similar to what her own parents had. Despite her distant and constant watching of a specific Gryffindor in the year above her, Luna had no interest in the Boy-Who-Lived.

Her attention was completely for _Harry Potter_.

For years, she watched as he stumbled from one setup to another _trap_. She saw the quick and agile mind he hid behind silence and slow blinks. She noted that he had a habit of randomly working through the shelves, always careful to pick off-peak times and be alone. She watched as he accepted everything offered to him and never pushed for more. Over and over again, she saw how events were eroding the solid core of him and everyone else _failed_ to see how their hero was beginning to crack.

Finally meeting him had been awkward. She had gotten used to only being seen as dotty or, as many called her, _loony_. People were always so willing to ignore the obvious if it made them uncomfortable. For the first time since her father's ability to _see_ had slipped away, Luna found herself being picked apart in a glance. His green eyes swept over her like she was one of the books he had devoured in the hidden nook in the library. A shiver of connection rushed through her at the realization that followed that assessment.

Harry Potter had the Noticing.

Luna wasn't alone anymore, even if they both kept it as much a secret as possible in their own ways. She knew that Harry was never going to be to her what Daddy had been to Mama, but at the same time, she couldn't deny their connection. It would be so easy to let her world revolve around Harry. He had an unconscious aura around him that pulled at the senses. It was as addicting as it was soothing. He may not be meant for her, but she knew that she would not hesitate to fill the gap of his missing anchor if he showed any interest at all.

She would give Harry _anything_ he needed.

She did make sure to keep an eye on Ginny.

Ginny always had been possessive of what she viewed as hers.

That was fine as long as the redhead didn't take more than what was offered. It was one thing to accept something given freely. It was another to _take_ without permission. Luna remembered Ginny's boasts from their childhood and Arthur's hesitancy to go against Molly on anything.

Harry had had enough people _taking_ from him. He was used to it, used to being on the outside of things just the same as Luna was. He was used to being alone.

That was fine when that was the situation, but it wasn't any more.

Harry had _her_ now.

…and he always would.

-= LP =-

When Hermione came to her with the news that no one knew where Harry had gone, Luna knew she would find him. Harry had a place where he went when he _had_ to be alone, when things threatened to overwhelm him. It was the window seat behind the forest tapestry at the end of the corridor near the Northwest Tower. The tapestry made it a nice hidey-hole where he was both sheltered from being found but still capable of seeing out. Luna had stumbled upon it early in her first year when her roommates had hexed her bed too badly for her to sleep in it. Harry didn't start showing up until after his selection as the Second Champion, but Luna was careful to not bother him, to intrude. Even after officially meeting him and discovering that he had the Noticing, and _no way to ease the flow of it_ , she had left him to his retreat. It became a secret just like the Noticing, a secret they carefully guarded from their friends. That Hermione suspected that Luna would know where Harry would be hiding was more than a bit disconcerting actually.

Luna had just given the other witch a tired smile before shooing her back to the combination of mass wake and celebration taking place in the Great Hall. She waited until Hermione was back at Ron's side, and therefore surrounded by the remaining Weasleys, before she contemplated what she was likely to find. Her gaze lingered on George who had Ginny pressed against his side. Perhaps feeling the evaluation, he turned his head to meet her eye. In that spot inside that simply _noticed_ the details that others often missed, she knew that he was already drifting towards Fred. She gave him a slow nod which he returned.

Turning on her heels, she drifted away herself. Harry needed her, and she had decided a long time ago where she would be if Harry needed someone. Harry was too much like her for her to consider leaving him to the care of others who could not tell that he wore a mask. People who _noticed_ were hard to find and so many came to messy ends in one way or another. The few who weren't driven to true madness still tended to burn out shortly after reaching adulthood. Those that lasted always found some way to channel it, to feed the urge _to know_ while still giving it _purpose_. As terrible as this war had been, it had given Harry that.

The Noticing had sent her parents into their crafts and once they had found each other, they had kept each other stable. It was only after her mother's death that her father had started to drift towards true madness. Luna had been enough to retard the process, but she understood that he had spent years longing to follow his bondmate, just as George now wished to follow his fallen twin. With Voldemort's defeat, Harry was now just as adrift, having nothing to hold him to the _Now_ even if his love for his friends would hold him to the _Here_.

Harry was exactly where she had predicted. The half-moon was barely enough to see his face, but she didn't need his expression to know what Harry needed. The touch hunger was yet another thing they shared. She didn't hesitate to crawl in beside him. Hermione had said that Harry had slept when she and Ron had, but looking at him, Luna knew he had faked it _again_ , just like he had back in the aftermath of the Triwizard Tournament. She pushed into his space, settling easily onto his lap. His breath hitched as his arms wrapped around her, uncomfortable as always with receiving comfort but never willing to deny it to another person. She knew it helped him, of course, because she _knew him_. Once he had relaxed enough to press his nose into her hair, she began to talk, just letting the words pour out as they would. She trusted that the Noticing would take them where they needed to be.

"My mother gave me my first Mark—tattoos are always a bit different when magic is involved, but Marks are even more complex. They hold _more_ , you know—More magic; more meaning; more power. Mama was from Kythira, or close enough. She always said that magic was different there—closer to what it used to be before humans sought to tame it through rites and wands. Because the magic is more wild, they have a tradition of Marking those who wield it, as both protection and warning. It didn't matter that she had followed Daddy here years before my birth: she gave me three glyphs as soon as possible. Daddy had left to visit the Naming Seer and she hadn't mentioned her intention before he left. Daddy always laughs now when he mentions it, when he remembers it, but Mama always talked about how mad he was. Apparently, the English don't tattoo their infants."

"What were they?" Harry asked quietly, like he didn't want to disturb anyone. It had only been hours since anyone had talked to him, but his voice had a disused quality to it. Luna rubbed her cheek against his chest before pulling back far enough to remove the oversized jumper she wore as she turned her back to him. Her camisole swung low on her shoulders, revealing the three black marks that stood in sharp relief on the nape of her neck. His fingers hovered over the Mark, hesitant in a way that he shouldn't be, not here in their hidey-hole where they were safe from the outside world. "What do they mean?"

"They are my name, as my mother saw it in the moment of my birth, to serve as a permanent reminder of my purpose," she replied. His fingers were warm as they finally traced the curves of the tattoos. She let her explanation flow with them, trusting him to understand in that unstated way that he had always had, the one which revealed that he was someone capable of _noticing_. "The sun and moon, to remind me to reflect as much as I reveal; a _caim_ to protect me and remind me to protect others; and a spiral to remind me to grow always."

"It looks like a whirlwind as seen from above," he said, still quiet. He still sounded far away, but he was still tracing the spiral. "Fitting, sort of. You aren't the kind to be contained. What is your actual name?"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Harry couldn't know the faux pas he had just committed. Muggles had long given up the 'superstition' of names having power and with the obscuring of non-wizardry branches of magic, even the magical population of Britain barely still acknowledged the taboo. Still, she couldn't help the shiver that went through her as she answered. She would never _not_ trust Harry Potter with anything. She would never _not_ follow him.

"Luna Cardea Apolline Lovegood, daughter of Dione," she replied as his fingers slid further down her back, obviously tracing the honeysuckle vine wrapped around three sprigs of white heather that sat between her scapulae. "I gave myself that one. It wasn't the first one I gave myself—" She lifted her left forearm to show him the black spiral of jagged lines broken by repetitions of the circle around a solid spot that made up the _caim_. It broke up the space where a Dark Mark would have placed as it coiled around her arm, which was as much its purpose as protection was. Two Marks could not occupy the same stretch of skin unless their magics could be tied together. "—but it was the most important one of recent years."

"Neville had this book back in third year…"

"Time's about right," she said, knowing what he was trying to say without him needing to clarify. "His gran would have given it to him to ensure he was ready for any courting ritual, especially since his natural inclination would have led him to choose plants above other gifts. Knowledge is power, after all." Luna leaned into his touch, seeking the warmth. Harry's response was to begin to stroke both his hands over the bared skin of her shoulders and arms. She let her eyes slide closed as she forced herself to keep talking. "Heather means protection and admiration, and a hope for wishes to come true. Honeysuckle is also for protection, specifically from evil, but it speaks of fraternal affection and joyful devotion."

"The honeysuckle is red."

"Trumpet Honeysuckle," she answered. He froze with his hands cupping the ball of her shoulders. She knew what he was thinking, of course, because _she knew him_. "Yes, they're for you. You aren't reading too much into it. No, I'm not trying to seduce you or trap you into anything. I would like you to breathe, though. It will also help if you talked about whatever has you staring out the window in the middle of the night instead of in the Great Hall with the other celebrants."

Luna felt him take a gasping breath. Silently, she reached up to reposition his hands against the space just below her clavicles. She kept her own breaths even, knowing that he would adapt to her pattern. That was what Harry did, what he always did. He adapted to the patterns of others, to _their_ needs and wants and desires. He wanted so much to be loved, to be held, and yet everyone always left him alone. He hadn't wanted to make things harder on _her_ , demanding that she stay away publicly to make her less of a target. She hated that, but there would never be a time when she didn't do whatever Harry needed.

Harry was _hers_ as much as she was _his_ and nothing else mattered, including defining what that meant.

"I died," he whispered eventually. Somehow, they had shifted so that he was once more leaning against the wall of the window seat, one leg folded on the seat and leaning against the glass while the other dangled towards the floor. He held Luna against his chest, his hands pressed against her skin. He pushed his nose into the space behind her ear. His every breath made her shiver as it warmed the area, made her want to weep with joy because it meant that he was alive in direct contrast to his words. Seeing him hanging limply in Hagrid's arms had made her physically ill. "I walked into that clearing expecting to not come back. I let him fire that spell, Luna, and all I felt was _relief_. I don't even remember why I came back instead of going on. They were waiting for me, and I knew it, but the next thing I knew I was back. I _died_ but I came back and now, _now_ I don't know what to do."

He shifted his nose to the crook of her neck, right where it met her shoulder. She waited only a heartbeat before raising her hand to his hair. He shuddered even as his grip on her tightened. It should have been awkward, she knew. It was intimate to have him breathing against skin that she normally kept covered. The way they were arranged, her back to his chest with his face hidden in her neck, was a lover's pose, one which would make Ginny hex her if she caught them. Her fingers tightened, and the grip had to be painfully tugging at his hair, but instead of pulling away or complaining, Harry relaxed into her with a groan.

 _Oh._

Luna carefully turned her realization over in her head. She connected everything she knew about Harry Potter. She brought up memories of how he would adapt to be whatever someone wanted him to be, how he would push aside everything he wanted—everything he _needed_ —until he was stretched so thin he couldn't help but snap back. He hid everything about himself under so many masks that Luna doubted any of the others had noticed how he was crumbling beneath the weight.

But rubber could only be stretched so many times before it _broke_.

Before her time in Bellatrix's custody, she may not have recognized this yielding in him for what it was. Her stomach twisted with conflicting memories. The resulting shudder that went through her made Harry whine before he curled more around her, protective even as he was breaking. Her captors had always bought such states with pain and focused on using their unwilling subjects for their own ends. It was both selfish and cruel. It was so vastly different from how her mother would wrap the succor around her father so that he could _rest_ when the drive to discover had become relentless.

Luna had always been willing to be anything Harry needed, to do whatever it took to keep him safe.

She could do this, too.

Luna turned in his hold, careful to never break skin contact completely. When she was kneeling between his legs, Harry stared at her face. His green eyes were dark with fatigue and as she pressed one hand against his cheek, they drifted half-shut as if the weight of keeping them open was becoming too much. She made herself _notice_ everything about him, let herself analyze everything she saw. The last thing she wanted was to have read this wrong. Satisfied with what she found, she pressed a kiss to his forehead as her other hand cupped his nape.

"I have you," she soothed as Harry shuddered into relaxation. She used her thumb to stroke the side of his neck, absently keeping track of his pulse. He nuzzled the sweep of her collar with a quiet whine. She hummed as she slid her hand from his cheek to card through his hair. Her grip on his neck flexed, more of a reminder than a demand. Predictably, he relaxed further, letting go of the constant awareness that came with the Noticing, trusting that she would hold him safely while he _rested_.

She would gladly fulfill this role, even with the knowledge that they both had people waiting for them somewhere in the world. She would do whatever Harry needed for as long as he needed her.

It wasn't great, but it was what it was.

At least they had each other now.

-= LP =-  
An Ending  
-= LP =-


End file.
